There's some particularly good baseball writing to be had today as two industry titans — Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal and SI's Joe Posnanski — stake out ground for their respective MVP world views.
Robothal summarized: "Sabermetricians and their fancy formulas are sucking the fun out of what used to be a great debate for a subjective award! Yes, Joe Mauer(notes) is probably the AL MVP, but people should be allowed to make alternate arguments without being shouted down by the number Nazis! Also, all sabermetricians live and work in their basement!"
Poz summarized: "Not all sabermetricians are computer-crunching dorks sitting in our basements, Ken! We're not bullies, either! However, the discussion for AL MVP begins and ends with Joe Mauer! To prove this, here is an array of stats that have names with more random letter groupings than your Alpha-Bits breakfast! End of argument! I'm not listening! Did you hear me? I said I'm not listening!"
OK, so both Rosenthal and Posnanski were a little more eloquent in their arguments and a tad less exclamatory. Still, I love the contrasting natures of their stances and think that both serve as a good portrait of the gap in understanding that exists between the two sides.
I agree with Posnanski (and many others) that Joe Mauer is your no-doubt-about-it choice for AL MVP. All the numbers, no matter how obvious or obscure, make the case over any other candidate and now that the Twins have worked their way back into contention, he's not shackled by the yoke of playing for a team that didn't go anywhere..
At the same time, I hear Rosenthal loud and clear on his wish that the MVP not become something that's awarded simply by feeding numbers into a calculator. Part of the reason we love baseball so much is that it's fun to argue over our picks for the annual awards. However, when those arguments are prematurely interrupted by someone wielding a smug statistical sword they're certain is absolute it deprives us of a good discussion and debate.
I'm sure both articles will help to drag the old SABR v. scout debate back into the arena, but that isn't my intention here. Instead, I'd like to know your thoughts on the following: Is a baseball world where both sides have a rational discussion possible? Or are we forever sentenced to just relying on old stereotypes in an attempt to discredit the other side?
To paraphrase a frequent commenter around here, will we ever all just get along?
The MVP views of Ken Rosenthal and Joe Posnanski collide
On September - 17 - 2009
There's some particularly good baseball writing to be had today as two industry titans — Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal and SI's Joe Posnanski — stake out ground for their respective MVP world views.
Robothal summarized: "Sabermetricians and their fancy formulas are sucking the fun out of what used to be a great debate for a subjective award! Yes, Joe Mauer(notes) is probably the AL MVP, but people should be allowed to make alternate arguments without being shouted down by the number Nazis! Also, all sabermetricians live and work in their basement!"
Poz summarized: "Not all sabermetricians are computer-crunching dorks sitting in our basements, Ken! We're not bullies, either! However, the discussion for AL MVP begins and ends with Joe Mauer! To prove this, here is an array of stats that have names with more random letter groupings than your Alpha-Bits breakfast! End of argument! I'm not listening! Did you hear me? I said I'm not listening!"
OK, so both Rosenthal and Posnanski were a little more eloquent in their arguments and a tad less exclamatory. Still, I love the contrasting natures of their stances and think that both serve as a good portrait of the gap in understanding that exists between the two sides.
I agree with Posnanski (and many others) that Joe Mauer is your no-doubt-about-it choice for AL MVP. All the numbers, no matter how obvious or obscure, make the case over any other candidate and now that the Twins have worked their way back into contention, he's not shackled by the yoke of playing for a team that didn't go anywhere..
At the same time, I hear Rosenthal loud and clear on his wish that the MVP not become something that's awarded simply by feeding numbers into a calculator. Part of the reason we love baseball so much is that it's fun to argue over our picks for the annual awards. However, when those arguments are prematurely interrupted by someone wielding a smug statistical sword they're certain is absolute it deprives us of a good discussion and debate.
I'm sure both articles will help to drag the old SABR v. scout debate back into the arena, but that isn't my intention here. Instead, I'd like to know your thoughts on the following: Is a baseball world where both sides have a rational discussion possible? Or are we forever sentenced to just relying on old stereotypes in an attempt to discredit the other side?
To paraphrase a frequent commenter around here, will we ever all just get along?
